In my previous post I proposed that there is inequality which disadvantages all women around the globe. Anyone not wanting to change that situation seems irrational, or self-serving and hence morally blameworthy. Since this situation affects half of the Earth's population the matter is urgent, that is why it merits its own treatment.
Why should everyone accept that this is so?
Well, we know at the moment the following: We know that there is inequality that we can all agree is wrong. Namely:
- Income inequality: women doing the same job get lower salaries in many places.
- Chance inequality: often when admitting students or hiring applicants for a job male's are preferred, even if there is no other relevant differentiating detail in the applicants' CVs.
- Recognitional inequality: women get promotions and favourable performance reviews less often. This even happens - sadly - when women rate women, or for example when students rate teachers and lecturers.
- Inequalities in further gender-role based expectations: it is widely different how much work is expected from a woman to be spent raising her children, cleaning, and providing other essentials for her family. On top of this in many societies there are further unequally spread expectations such caring for the elderly and the sick, playing community roles, or being physically attractive.
To the last inequality some people object: but there is a similar expectation towards man, just look at the fact that handsome man are on TV and in ads. But this argument is wrong because it mixes up two things: it is very different that some people (among them some women) enjoy, and on men expecting women to look good. This is especially salient, because for women looks are often less important in choosing partners, whereas men sometimes 'punish' women on the basis of their looks, going even as far as to leave them, or making
employment, promotions, and so on conditional on appearances.
All the above listed are inequalities between men and women that are proven, that have been measured and observed in experiments, and can be read off from economic data. It is certainly obvious to any grownup that this situation needs to be changed.
With this, I’m not saying that woman should not care about their looks, not have children, etc. but that this
should be in their freedom to choose, and not what is expected of them to be prioritized. I’m sure many would choose to those these things, as these
activities can be very joyful, rewarding, fulfilling, etc. for some people, and there is nothing
wrong with them in themselves. What is wrong if someone chooses these activities because they are made
to believe that that’s the only right thing to do and they should choose it otherwise
something is wrong with them.
Of course as with any problem that is very large scale we
should look at the causes of the problem. As with other social-psychological large scale problems
there are social structural problems in the background. Most plausibly the factors are that:
- Girls are not
encouraged to follow certain career paths, and life-way, and to also experiment with new life paths, and
- women are given role models and feedback that prioritizes
the traditional gender behavior, plus
- there is a lack of viable role models and
alternatives, a lack of support for these, and a lot of punitive political and
social action and feedback if one tries to step out of line.
- Add on top of this that due to implicit bias even
people and organizations who are consciously and explicitly committed
to equality make sometimes biased judgments.
What we need to do is to provide choices, and a range of
role models, and to protect those who are punishing women for following their own paths. Just as a man nowadays one can aim at becoming a good father, an
astronaut (the most boring example of aiming high), a lawyer, an electrician, and a
nurse; a carer, an artist, a dancer, a bachelor, a family man, a community
fighter, a lone wolf, etc. so all options should be open and the same should be available for
any woman. And just as all these different types of men are cheered on, and there are people who reassure them that they are filling in a role that is needed, that they are making the right choices, so, women need the same kind of assurance, whatever track they choose, and whichever way they go.
There are some important mistakes that need to be avoided while giving positive feedback. One of them is essentialism, the idea that there is some element of the traditional gender role that
has to be maintained to be still a woman. This mistaken notion has had harmful effects already in many cases in the last 40 years. Just look at supposedly
‘empowering’ videos featuring woman who train hours every day and appear in the videos dancing in minimal clothing - reinforcing one of the most harmful stereotypes that being attractive sexually is what being a woman is - and perform
stereotypical male actions like handling power tools, fighting and shooting, taking revenge,
driving sports cars, and so on.
What would be needed instead would be the message that "Hey, you men – most of you –
aren’t like that either, and I don’t need to be like a man anyway. I’m happy to let go of
the traditional woman package too: I don’t have to be sexy, and I don’t
have to wield power tools or be a top business executive. I can be an okay
lawyer or counselor, or ... whatever! I can have my average business dealing in whatever I know
about, I can write books or pretty much do whatever I want. I can identify with whatever I want, and I can change. If I want to be like that I will be." Of course I'm not advocating radical individualism or that in making up one's mind about how one should live one shouldn't take into consideration one's family, loved ones, and community. But not in the way that one only thinks of the ways one could contribute to the life of others as people living in more rigid times did.
Of course in some cases there might be people who can 'max out' both the requirements of the traditional male and female stereotype. But that to me seems overly ambitious taken that most of us don’t even succeed in
either one of those two categories even when some of us try. What seems to be much saner is to treat these options as
a basket into which one puts what one can identify with – this can change as
life goes on. Of course commitments have to be taken seriously and
people should be encouraged to foster their skills, talents, work hard, help
others, raise amazing kids and so on – but not to do all these things at the
same time.
The mistake of pushing woman to pursue corporate and top-manager careers at all costs definitely has to be avoided. Liberation is not to have to be like some
of the most competitive, stressed, overworked and sometimes unscrupulous man. And it definitely isn't being like that, plus taking upon oneself to also tick the boxes of fitting the traditional women-roles. One should not be forbidden to achieve such
things, but no one should be expected to accomplish such crazy feats which are
not good for employers, persons, and kids in most cases.
So, what needs to be done? Our communities need to provide more support and give more trust to
woman whatever their goals and pursuits are. We need to provide girls with many options. Whatever they want to keep or reject from the traditional ‘woman’ package, and
whatever else they won’t to buy into, they need to be encouraged to give it their best and figure out if it fits them.
As I said, getting rid of inequality is not taking on elements of the
traditional male package or combining those elements with
traditional female elements. This also calls for work-place reform: workplaces and environments shouldn’t be built to suit mostly guys, and then claim that they
are women friendly if a woman can adjust and get along in them. That’s not
equality, that’s expecting women to take on traditional male roles.
What’
better is to offer more employment flexibility: 4 and 6 hours positions, work
from home options, opportunities to learn and stay engaged and connected
while at home with children and return later, etc. There is nothing necessary
in constantly prioritizing people in jobs who are 100% percent devoted to
their workplace. While this might be good in short term profits for bigger companies in large economies, it surely isn’t good in the
long term. Humans live in states partly to foster happiness and cooperation, not the
operations of super-wealthy individuals owning companies. And surely not, that companies can make profits
on employing unhappy, unsatisfied, and unhealthy, overstressed people.
Companies get away with these things too easily: they
focus on profits, and that is said to be okay in capitalism. Nobody seems to notice that companies only get the best of the employees and
state services and communities bear the burden of dealing with stressed, burnt
out, disillusioned individuals. Capitalism is not a higher order system when compared with a society, and its demands should not be placed higher than those of communities of humans.
This proposal is in my opinion a modest feminist proposal
with which everyone could get on board. It focuses on eradicating striking
inequalities as well as their roots. It does not propose that people of either gender should
rule or dominate the other gender, nor that one or the other gender is better. People of both genders show a striking variety of emotion,
thought, taste, and preferences in lifestyles. Why is it that men can tolerate
this in each other but not in women? Once we let go of the notion that there is
one type of women it will also be easier for men: just treat women as people,
as persons who might or might not like different things, who think this or that
way. You can ask questions, find these things out, get to know them, talk with
them and so on. Don’t stress about figuring out some supposedly existent
female mystique, or getting right 'what women want'. It is as different as what we guys want. I guess you will find that you can even have female friends, because, guess what: they have thoughts, ideas, can be fun, and are interesting.
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